Hudson: Disorienting Dharma

Hudson, Emily T.:
Disorienting Dharma : Ethics and the Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahābhārata / Emily T. Hudson. - New York : Oxford University Press, 2013. - viii, 268 S. - (AAR Religion in Translation)
Hochschulschrift. Teilw. zugl.: Atlanta, Ga., Emory Univ., Diss., 2006 unter dem Titel: Disorienting Dharma : Ethics and the Poetics of Suffering in the Mahābhārata
ISBN 978-0-19-986076-0
US$ 99,00 / £ 60,00 (Hardback)
ISBN 978-0-19-986078-4
US$ 39,95 / £ 27,50 (Paperback)
DDC: 294.5923046
-- OUP (USA): Bereits erschienen (Paperback-Ausgabe), OUP (UK): angekündigt für Januar 2013 --

Beschreibung
Disorienting Dharma explores the relationship between ethics, aesthetics, and religion in classical Indian literature and literary theory by focusing on one of the most celebrated and enigmatic texts to emerge from the Sanskrit epic tradition: the Mahābhārata. This text - one of the principal sources for the study of South Asian religious, social, and political thought - is considered a major transmitter of dharma, or moral, social, and religious duty. But basic questions such as precisely how the epic is communicating its ideas about dharma and precisely what it is saying about it are still being explored. In this book, Emily Hudson examines these issues through a variety of interpretive lenses including Sanskrit literary theory, reader-response theory, and narrative ethics. One of the first book-length studies to view the subject through the lens of Indian aesthetics, her work brings to light one of the primary narrative tensions of the epic: the vexed relationship between dharma and suffering. Hudson also seeks to make the epic interesting and accessible to a wider audience. She demonstrates how reading the Mahābhārata, perhaps the most harrowing story in world literature, can be a fascinating, disorienting, and ultimately transformative experience. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
Introduction: The Aesthetics of Suffering in the Mahābhārata. 3
   What is the Mahābhārata? 8
   The Aesthetics of Suffering. 27
   Two Central Concepts: Dharma and Duḥkha. 35
   Chapter Overview. 47
1. Meaning-Without-Saying: The Implicit Literary Theory of the Mahābhārata
   Sanskrit Literary Theory: Ānandavardhana's Concept of Dhvani and His Reading of the Mahābhārata. 51
   Reader-Response Theory. 61
   Narrative Ethics. 65
   The Implicit Theory of the Mahābhārata. 69
2. Dharma and Rupture in the Game of Dice. 74
   Summary of the Episode of the Dice Game. 75
   Proximity and Estrangement in the Episode of the Dice Game. 77
   The Depiction of Draupadī in the Dice Game. 97
   Dharma and Rupture in the Game of Dice. 100
   Conclusion. 104
3. The Eyesight of Insight: Dhṛtarāṣṭra and Moral Blindness. 106
   Dhṛtarāṣṭra's "When I heard ..." Dirge: The Lament as Summary. 109
   Dhṛtarāṣṭra's Role in the Failed Peace Negotiations. 116
   Saṃjaya Narrates the Battle Events to the Blind King. 122
   The End of the War and the Moment of Advice: Three Arguments Against Grief. 131
   Conclusion. 141
   Postscript. 143
4. Time that Ripens and Rots All Creatures. 146
   Two Theories of Time: Yugas and Kālavāda. 148
   Narrative Strategies of Temporal Manipulation: Consuming, Dismissing, Collapsing, and Stretching Time. 164
   Conclusion. 176
5. Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: Theodicy and Narrative Strategies. 178
   Fate and Human Exertion in the Game of Dice. 180
   Karma and Suffering. 189
   Kṛṣṇa the Enigmatic Deity. 198
   Heaven's Riddles or the Hell Trick: The Two Conclusions of the Mahābhārata. 205
   Conclusion. 216
Conclusion: Dharma and Suffering. 218
Appendix: Glossary of Characters. 225
Bibliography. 227
Index. 249

Autorin
Before joining the Religion Department at Boston University in 2010, Emily Hudson taught at Harvard University as a lecturer in the history and literature program. Situating herself methodologically at the crossroads of religion and literature, the history of religions, and religious ethics, Hudson's teaching and research interests focus on South Asian literature and literary theory and comparative religious ethics. Assistant Professor of Religion, Boston University, Department of Religion. Profile page.

Quellen: Oxford University Press (USA); WorldCat; Amazon; Oxford University Press (UK); Library of Congress; Google Books
Bildquelle: Oxford University Press (UK)
Bibliographie: [1]

References